Italy's Futurists - led by Filippo Marinetti - exploded onto the European cultural scene during and after the Great War with all the garishness and fizz of some of their founder's anarchic recipes. But was the menu taken up by Mussolini and his Fascists? Richard Jensen investigates.

Modris Eksteins on how the Hollywood treatment of Erich von Remarque's book describing the Great War 'from the other side' impacted on a Europe traumatised by slaughter and fearful of its future repetition.

New innovations in radiology have sparked public criticism as to its safety and cost-effectiveness. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen's discovery of the X-ray in 1895 and its subsequent use in medicine sparked similar safety and health hazard concerns throughout its development.

The British in the Americas, 1480-1815. Anthony McFarlane, Longman, 360pp.

Anthony McFarlane casts his net widely to cover the colonisation by the British of not only the north American mainland but also the islands in the Caribbean and what is now the state of Guyana. Aiming at synthesising the findings of the most recent historical research, he wisely chooses a chronological approach, while simultaneously analysing the structure of American colonial society and the Anglo-American economy.